A wild thought just hit me: if batteries and solar get cheap enough, could the power grid as we know it become at least partially obsolete?
The power grid is the greatest machine ever built by humans. It's gigantic, elaborate, amazingly reliable, and civilization as we know it would collapse without it. It's so ubiquitous that it's hard to imagine it not being here save in a "Mad Max" or "The Road" type collapse scenario.
It makes me think of this link that was posted here a bit ago:
http://cityinfrastructure.com/single.php?d=RuralOutsidePlant...
The analog "POTS" (plain old telephone system) would have seemed like the power grid to me as a kid and a teenager. It seemed that way up until the 2000s when the runaway growth of packet switching digital networks and cellular rendered it completely obsolete. It's been a while since I've even seen a POTS phone line.
Could the power grid be reduced to something you only see in big cities and industrial areas where you have tons of demand? Could it eventually go away entirely, or go away "as we know it" in favor of a bunch of lateral load-sharing links between independent mini power plants?
It's interesting to think about.
The power grid is the greatest machine ever built by humans. It's gigantic, elaborate, amazingly reliable, and civilization as we know it would collapse without it. It's so ubiquitous that it's hard to imagine it not being here save in a "Mad Max" or "The Road" type collapse scenario.
It makes me think of this link that was posted here a bit ago:
http://cityinfrastructure.com/single.php?d=RuralOutsidePlant...
The analog "POTS" (plain old telephone system) would have seemed like the power grid to me as a kid and a teenager. It seemed that way up until the 2000s when the runaway growth of packet switching digital networks and cellular rendered it completely obsolete. It's been a while since I've even seen a POTS phone line.
Could the power grid be reduced to something you only see in big cities and industrial areas where you have tons of demand? Could it eventually go away entirely, or go away "as we know it" in favor of a bunch of lateral load-sharing links between independent mini power plants?
It's interesting to think about.